Atari Anniversary Edition

List Price: $14.99 Discount Price: $0.39

Features:

• Includes 12 Genuine Atari Arcade Hits! Product Information Atari, the name synonymous with the video game revolution, presents the ultimatearcade collection. Each Atari title is faithfully reproduced down to the last detail, and each oneis just as easy and fun to play. Includes 12 of the bestic Atari games with all the fast action, sights andsounds you remember! Asteroids , Asteroi

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

A computer arcade at the touch of a button! [Posted on 2003-01-05]
These are great classic arcade games yet I only give it 4-stars because the games wear off in fun easily. It comes back to you every once in awhile which is good because you don't want to buy something you hate! The timeless Asteroids and Pong make this a great PC collection, but I think Atari 2600 Jewel Case has to be the best series! Get it if you want a home arcade!

Arcade games the way they use to be [Posted on 2003-07-02]
First off if you only like games that have high end 3d graphics and stereo surround sound I suggest you skip this package. However, if you remember these games when they first came out or if you simply want a little diversion in your day I highly recommend you check these games out. For less than 20 dollars you get twelve classic Atari games. Okay so some of them really aren't classics but even if there were only one or two games on the disc that I liked I would still consider my purchase a sound investment. Each game is re-created exactly as it was in the arcade. There's even an option for viewing the test mode of each game. This feature isn't particularly useful but if you go into the test mode for Centipede you'll discover that at one time they were going to include a grasshopper in the game. Tempest includes an add on level called Tempest Tubes which makes it like a whole new game. Other games have options that let you control the difficulty of the game and options for using a keyboard, mouse, or joystick. Each game also has an option that lets you turn on enhanced graphics. Personally I don't think they add anything to the games so I leave them turned off. The system requirements state that you need a 133 Mhz processor, 16 MB of ram, and at least a 2MB video card. I installed the game on a computer that I've had since early 1997. My computer has a 150 Mhz processor, 64 MB of ram, and 2 MB of video ram. All the games run just fine if I don't turn on the advanced features. The games that use vector graphics such as Asteroids and Tempest seem to suffer the most when I turned on the advanced graphical features. If I turn these features off then the games run just fine. The instructions on the box say you don't need any hard disk space to play the games. While that may be true it's best to install the games on to your hard drive. A minimal installation requires 66 megabytes of free space. Incidentally, one review for this disc said even if you install the games you have to insert the disk into the cd rom every time you wanted to play any of the games because the disk was copy protected. I installed the games and it never asks me to insert the cd whenever I want to play one of the games.

Play the classics without having to play rip-offs! [Posted on 2003-08-29]
To many online game sites give you rip-offs of the classics. They give improved graphics and a changed story and concept line! The worst part is they say it is a "pretty good game!" But discovering this helped me alot. With twelve fun and easy-control classics, you can have so much fun! The keyboard and mouse do take away from the feel but you can always the controllers. I reccomend this to all nostalgia seekers!

Very accurate (and playable!) recreations of classic games. [Posted on 2003-11-09]
I've picked up a few modernized versions of classic arcade games for the PC, such as Missile Command and Centipede, and while some are decent games highly reminiscient of the arcade originals (and expanding on them in interesting ways), none of them include accurate recreations of the originals in appearance and behavior. But now...

Atari Anniversary Edition includes twelve 1970s/80s arcade classics, and does a most impressive job of recreating the precise appearances, behaviors, and sounds of the original upright arcade games, right down to the pre-game "insert coin" messaging (but without the need for a pocket full of quarters!). I'm now playing these flashback classics on home PCs -- one P3 500MHz with Windows XP Home, and one P4 2.8GHz with Windows XP Pro -- with no problems.

In some cases, the game controls are a little awkward with the standard PC interface, but... Here're some specific notes on playing the games I that I actually remember from Way Back When:

Centipede & Millipede: Very usable with keyboard and/or mouse controls. I find them quite playable by using the mouse for movement and the keyboard for shooting.

Missile Command & Super Breakout: Usable with keyboard controls, but very awkwardly so. Using the mouse for movement and the keyboard for shooting works pretty well.

Asteroids & Asteroids Deluxe: Work great right from the keyboard.

Battlezone: Quite usable from the keyboard, if a little awkward. (But I found the original game a bit awkward, so...)

(I'm not myself familiar with the original Pong, Tempest, Gavitar, Crystal Castles, or Warlords.)

Of course, you may also be able to add and use joysticks, trackballs, and whatnot -- I haven't tried these.

Actually, my favorite features of this Atari collection are (1) watching my wife's face light up at the authentic sight and sounds of Tempest, and (2) watching my eight-year-old Gameboy-aficionado son spend joyous hours blasting away with Battle Zone and Millipede games three times his age. Priceless.

Nostalgic Atari Blitz [Posted on 2004-07-26]
I just sometimes don't seem to find some great video games like they used to anymore. When I grew up in the 80's, they really didn't seem to have anything classic other than Nintendo, Coleco, Mattel, Activision and especially, they original company king of video games, Atari. The original video game company really defined what video games should be like, whether it was about scores, storytelling, and fun. Classic video games have always came back here & there for updated video game systems, and the computer with fancy graphics and outrageous effects and violence. Yet, the classicness from Atari during the 1970's and 80's really broke the mold for video games.

The Atari Anniversary Edition, is a collection of a dozen video games based in the original Atari lineup. The graphics have been remastered bautifully to the bone here with each game to its original detail. The games range from classics like Pong & Centipede, to revolutionary games like Battlezone, Asteroids and Missle Command, which influenced so many games about military training. The disc also includes overlooked games like Crystal Castles, a knockoff to the massive Pac Man video game series, the addictive Super Breakout, Tempest, Millipede, and some others to add on. All in all, the games are great and just as addictive like they used to be during the revolution era of video games.

All in all, the Atari Anniversary addition is truly a must have for all gamers alike for the PC. Although many people may consider the deluxe edition that came out with games from the Atari 2600 system, this one is more worth the price because it is just simple and not as flawed as the deluxe version. For any gamer that hasn't seem to witness this great era of video games, get this and introduce yourself to the beginning of the video game revolution Atari started.

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